Part Of Gruesome Museum In Brazil Needs R Rating

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL — You would think the curator of a museum would encourge youngsters to visit and learn.

But not the head of the Sao Paulo Police Academy`s Crime Museum. When kids walks in, Sandra Bordalo pleads with them to go home, visit the park, read a book, do anything but look at the exhibits.

She has a point. The museum gives a first-hand look at crime, and it isn`t very pleasant. There are guns, knives, icepicks and machetes, along with instructions on counterfeiting, safe cracking and drug trafficking.

Want to learn how to load a revolver, run an illegal gambling joint or break out of prison? You can do that here. Most of all, you can learn many different ways to kill.

The murder exhibit, filled with photographs of mutilated victims, is so gruesome that pregnant women and children under 14 are not allowed.

``It`s shocking. I try to convince people to leave, but they prefer to see these things,`` said Bordalo, a 15-year police department veteran who has been the museum`s curator for two years. ``The world they live in is so violent, maybe they`re accustomed to it.``

Every year, more than 15,000 people come to this smallish but information-packed museum founded in the 1930s as an instructional tool for Police Academy trainees.

On a recent day, police trainees taking a course in criminal investigation sauntered through the exhibits with an instructor. But there was also a 30-ish couple holding hands, a family of four and a group of five teenagers.

``This is my third time here. It`s very interesting,`` said Marcel Vantini, 15, who escorted his four teenage buddies. ``I really like to see how people were killed.``

Indeed, most visitors brush past the museum`s first few exhibits, which include a history of fingerprinting and portaits of former police chiefs. And a few of the exhibits seem to have little to do with crime.

One room is filled with gruesome photos of automobile accidents, which proves little except that a lot of people have died behind the wheel of a car. Another exhibit shows physical deformities, including closeup photos of human hands with three, four, and six fingers.

The first must-see exhibit is dedicated to Brazil`s most infamous crime-the 1928 murder by an Italian immigrant of his pregnant wife. The immigrant shot her in the head and stuffed her mutilated body into a trunk that was shipped to France.

The original trunk, containing a wax model of the bloodied wife, is on display, along with yellowed newspaper clippings about the murder, original photos of her cutup body, the clothes she was wearing at the time of the killing and locks of her hair.

Also of interest is the safecrackers` room, complete with blown-open safes and dozens of instruments used to break locks and pry open vaults. In the neatly arranged display are flashlights, crowbars, screwdrivers, keys and, of course, white gloves so the bad guy doesn`t leave any fingerprints.

Another room displays tools used in prison escapes. There are bed sheets tied together in makeshift ropes, along with homemade knives and clubs. Wood, paper and soap-crafted pistols that fooled more than a few prison guards are also on display.

The same room contains the drug-trafficking exhibit, including a map showing major smuggling routes and a closeup photo of a man injecting heroin into his arm. Next to it is a glass case filled with instruments used to smuggle drugs, including a shoe with a hidden compartment in the heel.

But it is the section dedicated to murder that is the most popular, and shocking. On one wall are mounted dozens of guns, rifles and other instruments of death. One display case contains knives, axes and machetes.

Brass knuckles are displayed separately, along with household goods used in killings: a rolling pin, a hammer, a coffee grinder, a chair leg and what looks like a huge knitting needle.

An adjacent room contains grotesque photos of decapitated bodies, a man with a kitchen knife in his head and several people hanging limply from trees. Also on display is the reconstruction of another infamous murder in which a man shot his wife in the head and placed her body across railroad tracks to make it look like suicide. It includes a photo of her severed head next to the tracks.

``God, that`s sick,`` said curator Bordalo, burying her face in her hands. ``That`s the first time I`ve ever looked at these pictures.``

Bordalo said many of the museum`s visitors are crime buffs. They often arrive with newspaper clips, asking for information about highly publicized killings or other crimes.

But many others seem to have a morbid curiosity about death. More than a few have come looking for cadavers and walked away disappointed when Bordalo advises them to visit the morgue.

Then there is the debate about whether kids should be permitted in the museum. Some argue that allowing teenagers to view exhibits about crime promotes such activity. Others say viewing the shocking exhibits discourages it.

Alexander Barbosa, 15, who was touring the museum for the first time with Vantini, said he ``really enjoyed it. I didn`t know about many of these crimes.``

Asked if he was now more inclined to pursue a life of crime, Barbosa laughed, saying he`d rather be an engineer, but added: ``I`m going to come back when I have more time. There`s a lot to see.``